Survey of International Cooperation on Information Society

Information Society (also known as Informatisation in China) offers a promising vision of a people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented society, in which everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life. The enabler of the vision is Information and Telecommunication Technologies (ICT), and the strategy to achieve this vision is a unique multiple stakeholder approach, i.e., participation, commitment and cooperation of all stakeholders around the world.The government of China has recognized the importance of information society for its national development strategy of an “all-round XiaoKang Society” and, in general, for the eight UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It has formulated the “National Informatisation Development Strategy 2006-2020”, and explicitly placed special emphasis on international cooperation in order to team up with stakeholders at national, regional and international levels towards the achievement of the common objectives.This report, commissioned by the EU-China Information Society project, is a joint effort by the EU and China to investigate the role, practice and significance of international cooperation in information society. It intends to provide a wider, deeper and panoramic view of the activities and commitments in worldwide international cooperation on information society, and in particular, in China. The ultimate purposes of the report are to learn from the best practices, to identify potential priorities for future international cooperation, and to provide inspirations, insights and guidelines for stakeholders in both China and EU to conduct international cooperation on information society.